Israel secretly tried to recruit Ahmadinejad in regime-change plot
Israel spent years trying to turn Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into a regime-change asset, even arranging covert meetings in Hungary with Mossad chief David Barnea.
Israel spent years trying to recruit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s former hardline president, and later tried to position him as a replacement leader if strikes on Tehran’s top tier triggered regime collapse. It reached into Hungary through meetings involving then-Mossad chief David Barnea.
Ahmadinejad governed Iran from 2005 to 2013 and became internationally notorious after his 26 October 2005 speech at Tehran’s “World Without Zionism” conference, where he referred to Israel as the “Zionist regime” and echoed the line that Israel “must be wiped off the map.” He later hosted Iran’s government-backed Holocaust-denial conference in December 2006, while Iran’s nuclear program intensified and helped bring tougher United Nations sanctions in 2006 after enrichment resumed.
The effort began around 2022, was interrupted by the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack and the Gaza war, and then accelerated in 2024. It included at least two meetings in Hungary with Barnea, and a Hungarian official asked Gergely Deli, the rector of Ludovika University of Public Service, to extend an invitation to Ahmadinejad to a climate conference as cover for secret talks. Israel made secret payments to Ahmadinejad through his spokesman, Ali Akbar Javanfekr.
The broader strategy envisioned killing Ali Khamenei and other senior figures, then installing Ahmadinejad inside an “alternative government” if the Islamic Republic collapsed. Israeli planners also expected Kurdish mobilization and believed that political pressure, combined with damage to key infrastructure, could bring the regime down.
One Israeli strike in February hit the area around Ahmadinejad’s residence, targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers guarding him rather than Ahmadinejad himself. After that attack, Mossad operatives moved him to a safe house. His current status remains unclear. Iranian authorities placed him under IRGC house arrest after uncovering contacts with Israeli intelligence, while he was last seen at Ali Khamenei’s funeral on 6 July 2026, masked, in a heavy coat, and under guard.
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